PROFILE RETAILABILITY
Right-sizing for expansion
NORMAN DRIESELMANN
Retailability CEO Norman Drieselmann outlines how right-sizing Edgars’ s store estate has improved productivity, profitability, and relevance.
Norman Drieselmann, CEO of Retailability, has led one of the most decisive structural resets in South African apparel retail sector. At Edgars, a legacy brand with nearly a century of history, the focus has been clear: restore relevance, improve profitability, and position the business for long-term sustainability in a rapidly changing consumer environment.
A key focus of this transformation has been a right-sizing strategy challenging the traditional assumption that scale alone drives retail success. As consumer behaviour shifted towards more focused shopping missions as well as higher expectations around convenience and experience, Edgars’ large-format stores increasingly reflected inefficiencies rather than an advantage. Counterintuitively, the response was not retrenchment, but a redesign, to reduce excess space while strengthening commercial performance.
Under Drieselmann’ s leadership, store footprints have been significantly reduced and layouts re-engineered to align with contemporary shopping patterns. The objective was to create stores that were operationally stronger and commercially more productive, while retaining the aspiration associated with the Edgars brand.
He says:“ It was mission critical for the new layouts to demonstrate better value to customers without losing an appropriate level of aspiration. Our new store model achieves this. From a customer perspective, it means easier navigation inside what is still a big-box format, better adjacencies and flow between categories like fashion and beauty, improved service levels, and a more engaging in-store experience. Operationally, stronger means higher turnover density, better stock flow and improved cost efficiency, all driving sufficient improvement in profitability – that is, a profitability that allows for long-term sustainability as we look towards the next 97 years of Edgars.”
The Canal Walk store provides a clear example of the Edgars strategy in action. Drieselmann says that after reducing its footprint by half and redesigning the layout, turnover density
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